Small businesses will lead India's economic recovery in post-pandemic world: Amazon's Amit Agarwal

Bengaluru: The small and medium businesses, which are transforming themselves digitally, will lead India’s economic recovery in a post-pandemic world, Amazon’s Amit Agarwal said.

Citing an example of how telephone booths transformed into mobile recharge centres and stationery stores began offering digital printing services as their existing businesses were disrupted, Agarwal said that a similar reinvention is being seen today.

“The right kind of businesses are embracing technology. They are reinventing themselves by delivering products to their (customer) doorsteps,” the senior vice president of Amazon.com Inc. and Amazon India head said during a fireside chat with Sequoia Capital's head of public policy, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, at an event organised by TiE's New Delhi chapter on Wednesday. “They have transformed themselves into a digital business that is obsessed with serving their locality, and I’m optimistic that this base is going to lead the economic recovery of this country.”

From the 700,000 small businesses that sell on Amazon India today, to the tens of thousands of Indian manufacturers using the platform to drive a cumulative $2 billion in exports, Agarwal said that all one needs to do is empower such businesses digitally and get out of the way to let them grow.

Taking on criticism that Amazon is hurting small businesses through discounts, he argued that the use of digital technologies was reducing costs, which were then being passed on by sellers to customers. However, this was being painted in a very different light by a few “vested bodies” as the facts on the ground showed a different reality.

He added that e-commerce could power a structural shift that propels India faster towards the dream of Digital India, and help Indian brands become global brands.

“I think we are barely at day one for e-commerce in India, it's hardly even 3% of total retail consumption,” said Agarwal, modifying an oft-quoted motto of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.